Indian Student Pleads Guilty to Federal Judge Murder Plot

Lucas CountyJOHN BINDER13 Jul 2017Toledo, OH

A foreign national from India in the United States on a student visa pleaded guilty to terrorism charges and a plot to murder a U.S. federal judge in 2015.

Yahya Farooq Mohammad, 39, came to the U.S. originally on a student visa. Mohammad was attending Ohio State University when he and three other Muslim men, all of which are foreign nationals, were charged with attempting to send money to a leader of the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda, Breitbart News previously reported.

While in prison and awaiting trial, Mohammad told another inmate of his plans to murder U.S. Federal Judge James Knepp, the man overseeing his court case, according to the Associated Press.

Mohammad has pled guilty to trying to send money to al-Qaeda and plotting to kill Knepp, accepting a 27-year prison sentence.

Foreign nationals Sultane Roome Salim, 40, Asif Ahmed Salim, 35, and Ibrahim Zubair Mohammad, 36, are all still awaiting trial where prosecutors will ask that jurors convict them for their attempts to aid al-Qaeda.

Mohammad is the latest foreign national living in the U.S. who has been convicted of plotting a terrorist attack against Americans.

As Breitbart Texas recently reported, Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud, 25, was a naturalized U.S. citizen from Somalia who was able to get a U.S. passport and travel to Greece in 2014. While Mohamud was supposed to have a layover in Istanbul, he crossed the border into Syria.

While in Syria, Mohamud was trained by the Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist organization, al-Nusrah Front. Mohamud learned fitness skills and how to use a variety of weapons and tactics for a terrorist attack. Mohamud, prosecutors said, also said he wanted to die fighting in Syria.

Though training with a terrorist organization, Mohamud was able to return to the U.S. after his brother died fighting in Syria with al-Nusrah.

Once home, Mohamud plotted to get weapons that could murder American military officers and other government employees in uniform. Mohamud was even scoping out locations for the attack, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) investigation into the plot.

Back in 2015, the Somali national was charged and pleaded guilty to the terrorist-related charges, which included providing material support to terrorists and providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.